


Cataclysmic

by alexanderlightweight



Series: Roswell New Mexico Week 2019 [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 07:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanderlightweight/pseuds/alexanderlightweight
Summary: (Part of the Roswell New Mexico Week 2019)Prompt: Quick and DirtyAlex learned to give no quarter.  To fight quick and dirty when cornered, to put his opponent down and ensure they wouldn’t get back up.





	Cataclysmic

Alex grew up on a battlefield, somehow it seemed morbidly fitting that it became his career. 

_He’d never wanted it to be._

He’d known how to fight, to throw a proper punch and to gauge whether or not defending himself would be worth the repercussions. He’d known how to go limp and to breathe through a grip on his throat. To tense his muscles for an oncoming blow, to move with the momentum without losing his balance. 

_Alex was sent to war, but he was built for survival._

His father was old school, set in his ways and hindered by his own pretensions and unwilling to change or better himself. Alex was practically a blank slate in comparison, willing and nearly desperate to learn how to better himself, how to live and be capable. 

_And he did._

Alex learned to give no quarter. To fight **quick and dirty** when cornered, to put his opponent down and ensure they wouldn’t get back up. 

_If a hand reached out to drag you down, if you broke it, could it still hurt you?_

Only once his instincts were primed, his situational awareness on point and his body in-tune with a nearly automatic defense system, did he further learn subtlety. 

Sometimes it’s the smallest of actions that can save a life, your own or someone else’s. He learned moves that were as elegant as code-breaking and just as important. 

A blow to the back of a knee, a pinch and twist to the soft skin on the underside of an arm. The percussive shock of cupped hands striking over someones ears. A handshake that turned into an arm lock, one that would either send the enemy to their knees, or break their wrist. 

Alex learned to embrace pain, not to just breathe through it but to let it guide him. To give him motivation, not to be hit again. To focus and center his mind on what needed to be done.

_Most importantly, he survived._

He survived and he won battles and he fought in a war not only physical but in the codes he created and the databases he infiltrated. He protected and defended and used every moment of his training in an effort to do better, to help people.

_They never told him that to protect, you had to harm. That to defend, you had to strike._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr as [alexanderlightweight](https://alexanderlightweight.tumblr.com)


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